Rep. John Carney, D-Del., has taken to the web to broadcast what it’s like to walk the halls of Congress as a member of the House. A new YouTube video chronicles Carney’s sun-up-to-sun-down routine of meetings, phone calls and train rides. Sound interesting? Not really, but that’s sort of the point.
“There’s kind of a notion that it’s some kind of luxurious sort of thing,” Carney says of being a congressman. He tells Yeas & Nays that the point of the video is to communicate with constituents and clear up misconceptions of what the job is — long hours, and far more meetings than parties.
Carney isn’t the first congressman-turned-screenstar– Cynthia Lumis, R-Wyo., Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., and former representatives Steve Kagen, D-Wis., and Eric Massa, D-N.Y., have all participated in day-in-the-life videos in the last three years, none of which exactly set the internet on fire. Viewers can watch McHenry update his Facebook status, Kagen show off his congressional pin, and everyone attend meetings so dull they produce not one notable soundbite. But this is typical of the Washington inertia Carney has seen in his year in Congress.
“I’ve always worked on the executive side of government,” says Carney, who previously served as Delaware’s lieutenant governor. “I was used to really getting things done on a daily basis. Now a lot of what we do is process oriented. It can be frustrating. It takes a lot of hard work to get anything done.”
Carney at least injected some personality in his video with shots of him pumping iron at the YMCA and a decent soundtrack. “We had some Willie Nelson music I wanted to use,” he says, but copyright issues foiled that plan.
